In the age of Coronavirus, it is clearer than ever that American "democracy" is a sham: a system designed to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful, which enshrined the rights and privileges of slave-holders and colonizers upon its foundation and which today disenfranchizes thousands of working and poor people while preserving an economic and political system that benefits corporations and the mega-rich at the expense of everyone else.

We've put together a reading list of books that examine the policies, practices, and histories that undergird this so-called "democracy," and put forward analysis and strategies related to building an actually democratic society and winning freedom from exploitation and oppression.

All of these books are currently 30% Off.

Activist, teacher, author and icon of the Black Power movement Angela Davis talks Ferguson, Palestine, and prison abolition.

In this series of electrifying essays, Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism.

“This brilliant book is the best analysis we have of the #BlackLivesMatter moment of the long struggle for freedom in America. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has emerged as the most sophisticated and courageous radical intellectual of her generation.” —Dr. Cornel West
 

It is not enough, Naomi Klein tells us, to merely resist, to say “no.” Our historical moment demands more: a credible and inspiring “yes,” a roadmap to reclaiming the populist ground from those who would divide us—one that sets a bold course for winning the fair and caring world we want and need.

How We Go Home shares contemporary Indigenous stories in the long and ongoing fight to protect Native land and life.

As isolated individuals, debtors have little influence. But as a bloc, we can leverage our debts and devise new tactics to challenge the corporate creditor class and help win reparative, universal public goods. Can't Pay, Won't Pay is a powerful guide to action for people in debt.

"No writer has better understood the mix of fear and possibility, peril and exuberance that's marked this new millennium." —Bill McKibben

An original and compelling analysis of how a newly emboldened and radicalizing right has come to global political ascendance in the years after 9/11, culminating in the victories of Trump and Brexit.
 

"If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free." —Combahee River Collective Statement

A funny and accessible introduction to socialism.

A newly updated and expanded primer for 21st-century democratic socialists from acclaimed scholars Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, with Stephen Maher.

Organized alphabetically as a lexicon, Keywords explores the history and common usage of major terms in the everyday language of capitalism.

A lively, accessible, and timely guide to Capitalism for those who want to understand and dismantle the world of the 1%.

Those readers unwilling to smile and nod as every day we become more dependent on our phones and apps to do our chores, our jobs, and our socializing can take heart as Rob Larson's withering analysis cracks the code of the economic dynamics that allowed Big Tech companies to become near-monopolies.

A compelling and timely account of the corruption, corporatization, and militarization of science in the United States.

An in-depth look at Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and the preexisting crisis that conditioned this historic disaster.

Capitalism is killing the planet, and the preservation of a natural environment favorable to human life requires a radical alternative. In this new collection of essays, long time revolutionary and environmental activist Michael Löwy offers a vision of ecosocialist transformation.

This classic book is the first truly comprehensive history of American imperialism.

No One Is Illegal convincingly debunks the leading ideas behind the often-violent right-wing backlash against immigrants.

Offering a broad historical perspective, Selfa shows how the Democratic Party has time and again betrayed the aspirations of ordinary people while pursuing an agenda favorable to Wall Street and U.S. imperial ambitions.

Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education reveals how neoliberal policies, practices, and modes of material and symbolic violence have radically reshaped the mission and practice of higher education, short-changing a generation of young people.

From the dawning of the industrial epoch, wage earners have organized themselves into unions, fought bitter strikes, and gone so far as to challenge the very premises of the system by creating institutions of democratic self-management aimed at controlling production without bosses. With specific examples drawn from every corner of the globe and every period of modern history, this pathbreaking volume comprehensively traces this often underappreciated historical tradition.

Complete with a new introduction, Revolutionary Democracy argues that Marxism, including pre-revolution Bolshevism, has historically been firmly aligned with democracy.